Sam Elliot blames the Catholic Church and Bill O’Reilly
The Golden Compass movie grossed $380 million. Despite this success, New Line Cinema has canceled the production of the sequels, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass.
Bigot Bill Donohue claims it was his boycott that shut down the the completion of the Dark Materials trilogy:
I am delighted the boycott worked. Just as the producers have a right to make the movie, I have a right to protest.
“The reason I protested was the deceitful attempt to introduce Christian children to the wonders of atheism in a backdoor fashion at Christmas time. Everyone agrees the film version was not anti-Catholic, but that hardly resolves the issue. The fact is that each volume in the trilogy becomes increasingly anti-Catholic.”
“I knew if we could hurt the box office receipts here, it might put the brakes on the next movie.
“I also knew this boycott would work because once the word got out that the movie was bait for the books, Christian parents would take their kids to see Alvin And The Chipmunks. Which they did, in far greater number.”
Sam Elliot, who played Lee Scoresby in Compass, agrees. He blames the Catholic League and Bill O”Reilly’s war on the “war” on Christmas:
The Catholic Church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I’m concerned. It did incredible at the box office, taking $380 million. Incredible. It took $85 million in the States. The Catholic Church… lambasted them, and I think it scared New Line off.”
“I would have loved to have gone after them. I would have liked to have sat down with Bill O’Reilly and talked it out. There are two sides to that coin. It’s a shame as it’s a great trilogy.”
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What did we learn from this?
Sam Elliott is so f'n cool, I almost wish I was him.
Bill Donohue is still a tool. I still don't consider the use of the word bigot to apply to him but he is an ass-hat of the highest order.
I always classed Donahue as being a defender of Catholicism instead of an attacker of non-believers. You are right, he DOES meet the definition even if his primary motive is to do PR work for that plague of the world, the Vatican.
Cheers.
I won't deny that Donohue is a bigot and an idiot, but to claim that the catholic church is responsible for not being there a sequel to TGC is too much.
The catholic church has a history of complaining about almost anything, from movies, to Madonna. Yet, many of these have been successful and even more successful after the catholic outcry. The catholics were pissed off about The DaVinci Code and there we have Angels and Demons, for example.
I liked TGC, not more than LOTR, but certainly more than Narnia (and not because of the religious thing). I would love to see the other books in a movie.
Sad, the 2nd and 3rd book were even better.
Now I’ll just have to buy all three books for my kids, my nieces and nephews, my friends’ kids, the neighbors’ kids, my coworkers’ kids, and any other kids I can think of.
I weep for the nation…I'm moving to Northern Europe
Jonathan,
Have a good trip in Northern Europe. Anti Christian movies always seem to be ok. Too bad the cowards don't make any anti Islam movies.